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Mondstadt wasn’t really known for its alchemy before Albedo’s arrival. Not only everything changed since then, but also the genius alchemist accepted a couple of students to teach his arts. It was only a matter of time when that change was making a real difference in the city itself.
It all sounded perfect from the outside, however, there was one thing which was concerning Albedo: Sucrose, who was carrying an anemo vision and was a really keen student, was also a clumsy person. Not that it was bothering him in a negative way, no – it was just that because of that, she was often dropping the laboratory glass, breaking it as a result and then often hurting herself while trying to clean the mess up. Many would say wearing a gloves would solve the problem but in fact, the material of those was rather smooth, so it was only increasing the likeliness of the glass slipping from her hands and breaking. So eventually Sucrose was often avoiding to wear her gloves in the lab. Was it making the possibility of the glass breaking less likely? Certainly, yet still the costs they had to cover every month by getting new tools was insanely high — almost all of Sucrose’s scholarship had been used to cover those fees, which was greatly cutting on their monthly research funds.
But Mora wasn’t Albedo’s concern, as he never really worried about it in his entire life. Although everyone was rather seeing him as an emotionless academic, caring only about his research, his interests being his only source of joy – it wasn’t exactly like that. In fact, the alchemist was indeed finding it hard to express his emotions, but it wasn’t equalling to him being unable to feel anything. He was worrying about Sucrose, as he could tell those incidents weren’t only causing her physical harm, but also having a negative impact on her mental condition. The Chalk Price could assure Sucrose all of it wasn’t her fault, but she wasn’t listening, or maybe she was too insecure? Psychology wasn’t the subject Albedo had much knowledge of, so he was unable to really tell.
The alchemist was trying to think how to solve the problem, as not allowing Sucrose pursuing her studies wasn’t an option as well. Albedo was spending great amount of his own money for all bandage aids for the fellow researcher, yet seeing her hands covered by those all the time was somehow hurtful and surely wasn’t either comfortable nor healthy. But the chief alchemist’s nature wasn’t allowing him to give up easily so he kept looking for any solutions.
Just recently, Albedo returned home from Inazuma with notebooks full of neatly written notes, some sketchbooks with even more notes and some paintings, but what the alchemist treasured the most was the books he managed to get on his little trip. To be fair, he was happy when he was returning with just a half of what he managed to collect his time, so he considered the visit to Inazuma incredibly lucky.
Once in his own workshop, the chief alchemist gathered all the new materials on a huge desk and decided to take his time to read all the books. The first one on the huge pile was about a local art called “kintsugi”, which – believing the cover of the book – was used to fix broken objects.
When he saw that book back in Inazuma, he immediately thought about Sucrose. Whenever he was finding anything reminding him of the fellow alchemist, he was buying it without giving it second thought(s?). He just knew Sucrose’s major required using a lot of laboratory glass and maybe – just maybe – after fixing she might’ve been able to use it for some longer time? And saving money on the tools meant more money to expand their research fields, wasn’t that what they all wished for?
The Chalk Prince took his time to read through the book, at first wanting to take notes, but quickly realized it was written in language so simple he didn’t really need notes. He could just left the book open on the “tutorial” part and start experimenting when needed, and all what he needed was just a bit of gold to check if the thing would even work. Luckily finding a bit of the said material wasn’t difficult, so soon enough Albedo was able to start experimenting on the art of kitsugi and to see if it would even work on lab glass. To his surprise, it had worked just fine, needed a bit of alchemical enhancement and practice with the technique, but this might change the whole thing, finally.
Albedo was attempting to keep his experiments secret, just in case it all would turn out to be a failure — he really didn’t want to raise Sucrose’s hopes and then shatter it, if the whole thing would turn useless, that’s it. They could shatter the glass, but he really didn’t want to do this to the fellow alchemist’s feelings, as he was really genuinely caring about her feelings.
Sucrose was a type who might always try to hide what she felt, or more like - avoided speaking about it as her action was usually making it pretty obvious almost every single time. She just never seemed to be able to put what she wanted in words, being more expressive by gestures and expressions than by words.
The chief alchemist was a keen observer of the world, which included observing people, and considering that him and Sucrose were spending quite a lot of time together, he really could tell a lot about the other scientist and he knew her well. Just like she never said aloud the breaking glass issue was making her sad or anxious, but he could tell by the way she acted, how her brows narrowed a bit and how then she started to be a bit of scared of doing the lab work. But what the two alchemists were similar in was the fact it was impossible to stop them from pursuing what they’ve planned, so Sucrose kept working with the glass.
Maybe you had to be a bit stubborn to be this dedicated to an academic career.
Few days later, Albedo made this much of the gold-fixed glass that it was quite impossible to keep it hidden any longer. In fact, he learnt quite a lot in the process and got quite sure that pure gold was a relatively soft metal, so the changes by either changing the metal’s alloy and adjusting it further by alchemy were necessary to make the structure of it as much glass-like as possible, and soon enough the alchemist was quite satisfied with what he was getting.
He stared at his desk and only then he realized he had a desk full of fixed lab glass. When he was standing by it, wondering what to even do with this, he heard door opening.
“Mr Albedo-“ he heard a familiar voice calling. He turned around to see Sucrose, knowing all his hard work to keep the kintsugi secret just came to naught. At this point he didn’t really mean it though, as he was about to show it all anyway.
“Oh, Sucrose. Good morning,” he greeted her casually, noticing she got interested in what Albedo was up to this time. He followed her stare and looked at all the lab glass, knowing well he had to explain. He briefly said the whole story how he saw the book in Inazuma and decided to give it a try.
“I made those but I’m not sure if we can even use it in the lab,” Albedo commented, “We know how the glass itself work but I’m not sure how the gold would react. I’ve attempted to adjust it by alchemy as much as I could, but… I just have to research on it more and test it thoroughly.”
“Let me help you,” Sucrose replied, only then approaching the desk and examining the fixed items. She touched the thin layer of gold connecting the glass together and she discovered the surface of it felt almost perfectly smooth. Albedo really must’ve worked hard on this and that was actually explaining why he disappeared in workshop right after returning from the trip. She was aware he kept looking for the fix because of her and seeing the blonde so dedicated in this was making her really touched. People tend to think of Albedo as of some emotionless, mysterious being and they you got the chance to be around him long enough to learn his ways of showing care, or any other kind of emotion. She was really flattered by the fact the chief alchemist cared this much and even if she never felt confident about herself, it was feeling like a boost of some sort.
“It’s really pretty,” she said, noticing how the sun were making the whole item shining, both glass and gold shining in their own, unique ways.
“Do you like it?” Albedo asked, the alchemist’s cheeks feeling like burning, what made him a bit confused.
“Oh,” Sucrose examined by surprise, “Of course. You’ve never tried his skills in this matter so it’s always delightful to see you trying new things, Mr Albedo,” she replied, her ears twitching a bit from anxiety. She never knew what kind of reply he expected from her when he was asking this kind of questions, especially when he was staring at her in such a warm way. Sometimes she wondered what exactly was going on in Albedo’s mind and what exactly was he feeling towards her? He was always extremely kind to her and was always respecting her more than anyone else. While it still had been feeling new and surprising to her from time to time, she couldn’t deny it was very nice to be treated that way. Deeply in her heart, Sucrose knew she most likely would be unable to learn the alchemy and work in the field as bioalchemist and keep doing all the experiments if her teacher was treating her any different.
After that short and quite awkward exchange, the alchemists just proceed to what they were the best at – experimenting. They carefully checked through every single substance they were aware of existing (and had available to use at the moment), and the glass seemed to work just fine with almost everything. Timaeus was also helping, preparing notes of the experiment during the whole process.
“Hm, so we should just make a list of things we can’t use with it,” Albedo assumed, looking at their results. It was late at night and everyone were tired. “And for those we’ll use a regular glass,” he added. His assistants nodded tiredly.
Albedo got so fascinated by the whole process that he just kept playing around with the gold and the glass, so in few days he made quite a lot of those, neglecting all other awaiting experiments. Sucrose looked at the amount of glassware which was stored in Albedo’s office and realized it was getting out of hand - as every single Albedo’s fascination.
“Mr Albedo, some more and you won’t be able to store it here,” she said, concerned.
“Oh?” the other alchemist looked up at her, as he was in the middle of testing what was the smallest piece he would successfully attach using the kintsugi method. Sucrose sighed.
“You made so much that soon we won’t be able to collect any of the glass, and we have new supply deliverer tomorrow. As always, you forget about everything once you get fascinated by something.”
Timaeus entered the room and listened to the entire conversation. He stared at the glassware and thought for longer while.
“Maybe we’d sell those?” The assistant asked.
“And who would buy this?” Albedo doubted.
“Wait,” Sucrose replied and left the room. The two men waited, curious to see what was in the other alchemist’s mind. Soon, she returned with few flowers and put them into the glassware which was on the desk. She examined how it looked.
“Pretty,” she commented and smiled. Albedo observed that carefully and nodded softly. The flowers might’ve been pretty but Sucrose was way more prettier.
“It might actually work,” Albedo agreed. He got some Cecilia Flowers, which were his favorite, and they decorated the workshop a bit with it and the place felt a bit more lively and warm. “Let’s arrange some space for it on our store, shall we?” he asked, feeling excited to do anything related to the kintsugi.
Sucrose offered to organize the shop’s space and she started to arrange everything, meanwhile Albedo gathered some of the glassware and decided to pay Flora a visit, giving her some of the glass as gift. To his surprise, the girl loved the idea and instead of selling flowers to the alchemist, she told him to take it for free as she was already busy putting cut flowers into it.
Albedo came back with more flowers and together with Sucrose, they finished working on the store. They put the flowers into some of the items for exhibition purposes, made labels with short descriptions and pricing. They didn’t really expect to sell much but to their surprise, quite a lot of people got it on the day they arranged it.
“I overheard that Flora was recommending our items,” Albedo said in the evening when they were cleaning up.
“That’s very kind, we should thank her,” Sucrose replied, smiling. Kindness like this was always something she never expected but it was always feeling great to see people willingly do such nice gestures.
“Yeah… But also, thank you, Sucrose,” he said and he could see the other alchemist was confused. “If not for you, I’d just tell Timaeus that there’s no chances we’d sell anything. And then you brought those flowers and arranged everything so beautifully. It really feels nice in the lab now.”
She listened to Albedo’s words and blushed, not expecting him to say that. Albedo was really trying his best to not be as cold and emotionless as everyone thought him of, hoping Sucrose would notice and be aware of his warm approach towards her. He really liked the woman, he also wished all the best for her, and was very sincere in it. Maybe he wasn’t sure how to express it, but he really was doing his best to make sure Sucrose was feeling comfortable around him. If he could, he’d just hug her and stayed like this with her, as he had a feeling it might feel very safe and cozy. Albedo truly got attached to Sucrose and that wasn’t something he’d say often.
Few days later, Albedo realized Sucrose was more willing to be outside, tending around the flowers and even talking to the customers. He decided to walk out too, wanting to be around the fellow alchemist, as he missed her company.
“Yes, I really love how the gold shines in the sun, it makes the glassware so pretty,” said Sucrose – as Albedo overheard her talking with a customer – it was a girl around their age and she was getting some of their vases.
But the kintsugi wasn’t really solving anything, at least in Albedo’s opinion. They could earn some money from selling the laboratory glassware, so Sucrose had more founds for her research, but that wasn’t fixing the main issue which was her breaking the glass regularly. The chief alchemist’s mind was still mostly occupied by this, as he was worried about her and wondered what actually he could do to fix the situation as he wasn’t truly satisfied yet so he had to continue his experiments with the glass. He looked up from his sketchbook at Sucrose, who was checking on some flowers with soft smile. Ever since they were selling the vases, she was smiling more and Albedo felt happy. She was pretty normally, but when she was happy, she was even more beautiful. Albedo sketched a portrait of Sucrose, knowing well days like those were rare, yet were always precious to the alchemist. Once he returned to the page where he had glass-related notes, however, he sighed heavily.
Ideally, Albedo needed something which would work as lab equipment, with similar attributes to glass, but something less breakable, preferably. non-breakable. With that in his mind, the alchemist soon left to his office and continued his research.
Albedo looked through the window and realised it was long after the sunset. Normally, he would return home as he believed having a proper sleep and good rest was essential in his work, as clear mind was important to successfully work on all the experiments and researches. Yet the frustration didn’t let him rest anyway, so he just continued his work, but he made almost no progress so far.
Suddenly, the door opened and he saw Sucrose walking in. She looked at him and then she examined all the items on his desk. Various glass pieces with notes attached to it were speaking for themselves and it was very clear to the bioalchemist what Albedo was trying to work on and why. Even ig Albedo remained silent and didn’t explain the whole thing, she just knew he continued researching how to help her with the issue with regularly broken glass as he was so obviously worried.
For all the time before, she was actually kind of ignoring Albedo’s signals, being sure she might be wrong, her hopes making her misinterpret the other alchemist’s intentions. She had been feeling something towards Albedo for quite long, and she was just sure those feelings were messing with her abilities to understand the other’s actions. “He was just kind, as he was to everyone else, wasn’t he?”, she believed. But somehow seeing him doing so much of extra work not only completely on his own, but also in secret somehow made Sucrose sure he, indeed, cared a lot about her. Maybe she was unable to wrap her mind around the whole idea why Albedo actually did care, but there he was, spending so much of his time on something for Sucrose.
Albedo stared at the fellow alchemist, holding one of pieces of the glass in his hand, not expecting to see the other around at such late hour. Not only his secret research wasn’t a secret anymore, but also he somehow felt exposed – not that he was actually hiding his feelings, but he felt like that most likely because it was so sudden. He opened his mouth, feeling as he had so much to tell Sucrose, but at the same time, he couldn’t think of anything to say. It never was easy for Albedo to talk about his feelings, as transferring emotions into words never made much of sense to him. Just there were no words which would truly match with what he felt.
“Mr Albedo, you have a wound,” Sucrose said, noticing he must’ve accidentally hurt himself during his research. She immediately got all the bandage aid set and walked closer to the blonde to tend the tiny wound. The fact Albedo actually let her do this felt somehow tender, as she could touch his skin with care and make sure he was all fine. Taking care of the alchemist made her emotional and suddenly, she spoke up.
“Maybe neither of us are good at speaking,” she started, “but Mr Albedo, I want you to know I really do appreciate all the hard work you’re doing for me. First you’ve learnt a whole technique of kintsugi from a book you’ve got in Inazuma, then you still kept worrying about me. I mean, I am not used for people actually carrying for me, so I am unsure how to even react properly. But thank you so much, really, I-“ she exhaled, “I’m really happy because of you. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am…”
Albedo was standing there, shocked and having no idea what to say, not expecting Sucrose to speak so suddenly. He stared at her, noticing how her ears were moving nervously. Having no idea how to react, Albedo gently pulled Sucrose closer toward himself and kissed the bioalchemist. He felt overwhelmed by his own action, not believing he actually did it, feeling the scent of flowers as he inhaled right before moving away, all blushing.
After this, there was an awkward silence for longer while, as neither of them knew how to act. Eventually, Albedo cleared his throat.
“So… Since you discovered my… secret research, would you like to join me in this? I’m trying to improve the glass itself so it won’t break this easily…” he mumbled, blushing. She agreed with wide smile and placed a soft peck on Albedo’s cheek.
*
Few weeks later, the team of alchemists succeed in their research and discovered a new type of glass. The material was less likely to break and even once it did, it was shattering into truly tiny pieces so it was less likely for it to cause serious damages. After this, Albedo wanted to quit working with the kitsugi, but Sucrose protested to this.
“You can still do some from time to time, the vases selling well,” she said. They still had quite huge supply of those. “We might occasionally get ourselves some sweets,” she smiled, knowing she didn’t need to say sweets twice. Albedo’s stare focused more at her as he smiled.
“That’s actually good idea,” he admitted. “Actually, how about getting some sweets right now? We should celebrate our success.”
Sucrose agreed, and they left to local bakery, where they had their very first date.